Oklahoma basketball: Sooners have chance to sweep Frogs, but can they?

After a dozen Big 12 games, Oklahoma basketball has recorded just three wins against two teams. One of those teams is TCU, the Sooners opponent on Saturday.

You can argue that TCU (17-7, 5-6) is not the same team OU defeated by two points a month ago in Norman. But neither are the Sooners, and therein lies a big problem for the crimson and cream.

Both teams have cooled down some since Big 12 play commenced after strong runs through their respective nonconference schedules. TCU and OU both entered the conference season following 11-1 starts. The Horned Frogs are 5-6 in league play, while the Sooners are just 3-9 and mired in the thick of a five-game losing streak.

Oklahoma leads the all-time series with TCU 22-4 and is 7-2 in games played in Ft. Worth. The Sooners have come out on top in their last three games with the Horned Frogs, but only by a total of eight points. When the two teams met a month ago in Norman, OU survived a career-high 30-point performance by TCU’s Kouat Noi, who drained eight three-pointers, in registering a 76-74 victory.

TCU is coming off a heartbreaking 82-77 overtime loss at home to Kansas on Monday. The Horned Frogs led by four points with under two minutes to go in regulation, but couldn’t close out the 14th-ranked Jayhawks.

The Horned Frogs have two players who average as many points as OU’s leading scorer Christian James (15.4). Desmond Bane averages 15.2 points per game and Noi averages 14.8. Noi also ranks third in the Big 12 with 2.5 made three-pointers per game.

The Sooners have been misfiring on multiple cylinders during their current five-game skid, but they are still playing pretty good team defense. They just haven’t been consistent enough putting the ball in the basket. Oklahoma ranks 17th in the country in defensive efficiency (93.1), 21st in field-goal percentage defense (39.9) and 34th in rebounding (38.9).

OU will need a strong defensive effort against a TCU team that features strong ball movement and has the No. 1 ball distributor in the Big 12 and seventh-best in the nation in Alex Robinson. The Horned Frog senior guard averages 7.3 assists per game. As a team, the Horned Frogs average a Big 12-best 17 per game. All of this means that TCU is very good at creating good shots and finding open shooters.

Who will win?

Despite the loss to Kansas earlier in the week, TCU is playing good basketball of late, including a huge win last weekend at Iowa State, one of the most difficult places to play in the country.

The Sooners are not playing well right now, and with TCU playing at home and seeking to avenge the earlier loss in Norman, OU is not likely to get its problems worked out enough to register the road upset. The Sooners couldn’t get it done at West Virginia, and TCU is a much stronger team.

I honestly hope I’m wrong about this, but it is what it is…until it isn’t.

TCU 76, Oklahoma 69